The Ultimate Guide To Be Anonymous

Hey, Guys, I know many people want to stay anonymous on the internet, for various purposes, but how? How Can I be Anonymous or How to Be Anonymous? This is the question many newbies face while trying to be anonymous so in this post I am going to share a small guide for newbies who wanna be anonymous on the internet

Introduction to anonymity

When World Wide Web was started, a lot of users connected with it. With increasing visitors, came the need to identify them in order to prevent any illegal stuff going on over the internet. That started the era of tracing a person via IP address or the MAC address.
Whenever you buy an internet connection from an ISP, you are provided with an IP address which gives you an identity and also acts as a way to track your location as the IP address is stored with the ISP. Hence, Normally you are not anonymous, and you can be traced out easily.
At times, you might want to get your stuff done anonymously. I mean you do not want to let anyone know, who you are, where you are and what you are doing.
Believe it or not but we all like to do blackhatstuff. You might not be knowing but downloading a movie or software (which seems so normal to you) is not a white hat and is illegal.
You can be arrested for uploading a movie on a torrent(as various cases can be seen nowadays) and if it is not your day, even downloading a movie from a torrent site can cause enough harm for you.
With so much of risks all over there, you certainly need an efficient way to remain anonymous, and I feel , this article will fetch you all you need.
Also Check: Best Offline Android Games

How are you being traced?

So you may be thinking how they can trace me?

There are two ways in which the websites can find you are visiting them for the first time or not.
• IP Address
• Cookies
Now if you keep changing these two things continuously, even James Bond will not be able to figure out, who you are 😛 So, You need to change your IP address and clear your cookies to stay anonymous. When you get these two things changes, the website will consider you as a new visitor even though you have exploited the site’s features before (This pretty much sums up the benefit of remaining anonymous 🙂 )

How to delete cookies-:

The easiest way to get rid of cookies is to use the incognito tab in Google Chrome or other browsers. You might have used this thing a lot of times if you are 18+ (Just kidding 😛 )
Incognito browsing is completely anonymous. In fact, the incognito mode was made for this anonymity purpose only. When you are using the incognito mode, no cookies are saved in your browser. So incognito pretty much solves your cookies problem.
In case you aren’t satisfied with using the incognito window and want to use the regular window(There may be a lot of reasons why you want to) there, we still have something for you.
You can use the Edit this cookie Chrome extension to get your work done.
Once you are done with downloading and installing the Edit this cookie extension, open it up and click on the delete button and all the data and cookies related to you will be removed and the websites will not be able to track you anymore.
This edit this cookie extension indeed has more benefits. You can even get someone to login to your account without giving him your account details. Just ask him to install the extension and open up the website. Since this is not our topic, you can google for the steps for the same.

How to change IP Address

When it comes to changing the IP address, mobile device turns out to be super awesome. It is indeed really easy to change the IP address of a mobile device. You can directly download any VPN application like the Tunnel Bear or Rocket VPN.
The better way for mobile devices will be to turn off your data connection and turn it on again, and you get your task done.
But we aren’t talking about the mobile devices here, and we need to figure out a way to change the IP address for Desktops and Laptops. This is where the Zenmate Chrome extension comes to play.
Only install the Zenmate extension in your Chrome browser and turn it on. You will find that the websites are not able to track you anymore. In other words, you have successfully managed to change the IP address of your computer.

Many Other Ways-:

DNS Leak Testing-:

Even if you use a VPN to be anonymous, there is still a chance to giveaway you identity via your DNS traffic, but don’t worry it is easy to detect if your configuration is leaking your DNS information.

All you have to do is to go to DNSLeakTest and run the “Extended Test” if the results show your 3rd party DNS Services, then you are anonymous, but if it shows ISP’s DNS, then there is a DNS leak.

You can overcome this DNS leak by following the guide How to fix a DNS Leak and doing all steps correct after that comeback and check again

Using TOR Browser-:

Tor is free software and an open network that helps you defend against anonymity, You can learn more about TOR from their official website-: TOR

The Last Thing -:

If you truly want to be anonymous then follow this method, there may be a lot of hassles by this method, but this works like a charm. This method will configure your personal VPN on your own personal, out-of-country server. This is much safe than paying for a VPN site, whom you don’t even know. Your computer has lot of services and program which connects to the internet automatically without you even realizing. Windows is insecure, MAC is also insecure but less compared to Windows, But Linux is more powerful and more easy to use and more secure

Step 1 -: Install Linux on your virtual machine. You can refer this WikiHow Guide on How To Install Linux. Tail Os is one of the most popular privacy oriented Linux distributions. It is very lightweight and entirely encrypted.

Step 2 -: Find a VPS host in another country. It will cost you a few bucks per month but it is worth and it is guaranteed that you will browse anonymously. Don’t forget to find a host in an another country, so that traffic can’t be tracked to your home IP Address

Step 3-: After you sign up, just install on any of your Linux distributions, after that setup your own VPN on your VPS. Your computer will connect to VPN in order to access the internet from your VPS, so that it won’t track your home address as well as it will encrypt all data to and from VPS.This step is the most important as well as most difficult one, but you need to follow this step if you want to be anonymous. I will list out steps for OpenVpn on Ubuntu, one of the most best and reliable free VPN.

Visit the OpenVPN website and download the correct software package. There will be multiple options, so make sure to choose the correct one for your VPS’s operating system. You can find all the available downloads atOpenVpn

Open the terminal on your VPS and type

dpkg -i openvpnasdebpack.deb

to install the OpenVPN software that you downloaded. The command will be different if you’re not using Ubuntu or Debian.

Type

passwd openvpn

and set a new password when prompted. This will be the admin password for your OpenVPN software.

Open the web browser on your VPS and enter in the address displayed in the terminal. This will open the OpenVPN control panel. Log in with the usernameopenvpn and the password you created. Once you log in for the first time, your VPN is ready to go..

Step 4-: Now you need a browser to access the OpenVPN Connect Client to download the configuration file needed for connection.

Enter in the same address you used on the VPS to access the admin panel, (without the /admin part of the address.)

Login with your OpenVPN admin account using “openvpn” as the username and with your password .

Step 5-: Once your VPN is configured on your VPS, you’ll need to set up your virtual computer to connect directly to it. The following instructions are for Ubuntu and Debian, so you may need to change the commands to match your OS.

Open the terminal and type

sudo apt-get install network-manager-openvpn-gnome

Wait for the package to download and install.

Open the Network Manager and click the “VPN” tab.

Click the “Import” button and then select the configuration file that you downloaded.

Review your settings. The Certificate and Key fields should be filled automatically, and your VPN address should appear in the Gateway field.

Click the “IPV4 Settings” tab and select “Automatic (VPN) addresses only” from the Methods drop-down menu. This will ensure that all of your internet traffic is routed through the VPN.

Done! Your VPS and VPN are configured and working properly. Now you can browse with strong anonymity.

It is all configured now, but still you can use some more secure methods to be further anonymous. You can use search engine like DuckDuckGo

Final words

In case you feel lost somewhere, you can shout out in the comment box below. I love answering queries.
In case you happen to like this post and feel that it is useful, do consider of sharing the word. It helped you; it might even help your friends too.